I Got Covid. Six Months Later I'm Still Dealing

Photo courtesy of Unsplash

Six months ago, I got a phone call that rocked me: A friend who I had spent time with the day before had Covid.

He’d had a rapid Covid test that morning and it was positive. So I scheduled one. Negative. But within a few days, every single person my friend had contact with the day we saw each other also tested positive. So at the urging of a nurse, I took another test. It was positive.

I had already been quarantining since his phone call. Of course, I already suspected I had Covid. I lost my sense of smell, but my sense of taste was fine. I had a fever and body aches for a few days, never had a cough or trouble breathing, and, weirdly, being exclusively in our home caused my husband and I to rearrange all of our living room furniture. The rest of my family never exhibited symptoms, so the health department didn't want to test them. The thing that bothered me most was the isolation and the loneliness.

It took about six weeks for my sense of smell to return to normal and for the Covid-fog to disappear. Everything about my symptoms were strange but not encumbering. Overall, it seemed like the easiest sickness I've ever had to deal with.

About a month and a half ago, I started to notice that my favorite tortilla had an unpleasant, smokey aftertaste. Then I started to notice a sour meat smell everywhere. The chicken coop. The refrigerator. The bathroom. My body odor. Everything smelled like raw, spoiled meat. Then that smell sort of shifted into a spicy indiscernible smell. Like sticking your head into a spice drawer and taking a huge whiff. If it were curry or cinnamon or dill I might be able to identify it. Instead it smelled like everything. And it also smelled like sour meat. Sour meat and spices. Also, everything I tasted had that weird smokey aftertaste. Like eating a meal around a campfire. Everything from eggs to ice cream tasted like having a meal next to a smoker. It's so hard to describe. I'm doing my best, but it might not be something you understand unless you've experienced it. And I hadn't talked to anyone else who had this happen.

I shower twice as often as I used to. I'm never sure if I smell bad or where that sour meat odor is coming from. I'm afraid to go work out or do things that might cause me to sweat because... what if it's me? I enjoy food... sort of.

All of this was starting to make me feel insane until I joined a couple of Covid long haulers groups and then some parosmia and phantosmia groups on Facebook. I’m learning that parosmia is the act of smelling things “wrong” and phantosmia is experiencing phantom smells that aren’t really there. Some people who have had Covid smell smoke when it isn’t really there and they describe the sensation being worse at night. Others, like me, smell a strong sour meat smell or what some describe as decaying flowers when there is any strong odor.

Apparently this is pretty typical for some people who have had Covid. And while they can't help make the symptoms go away, there's comfort knowing I'm not the only one out there still being haunted by a mild case of a virus I got six months ago.

Anyone else experiencing this or other symptoms? Know you're not alone. I’ve heard stories about people “righting” their sense of smell or it just going away after some time.

Why do people assume that if Covid didn’t kill you, everything is okay? I’ll never take my sense of smell for granted again. This is just one more way Covid has negatively affected the lives of the people who had it.